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A system for injection of diesel fuel and water with real-time control, or real-time water injection (RTWI), was developed and applied to a heavy-duty diesel engine. The RTWI system featured electronic unit pumps that delivered metered volumes of water to electronic unit injectors (EUI) modified to incorporate the water addition passages. The water and diesel mixed in the injector tip such that the initial portion of the injection contained mostly diesel fuel, while the balance of the injection was a water and diesel mixture. With this hardware, real-time cycle-by-cycle control of water mass was used to mitigate soot formation during diesel combustion. Using RTWI alone, NOx emissions were reduced by 42%. Using high-pressure-loop exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and conventional diesel combustion with RTWI, the NOx was reduced by 82%.

Alternative combustion modes such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and low temperature combustion (LTC) have shown very promising engine-out emissions. However, these combustion modes are close to the combustion stability boundaries and very sensitive to in-cylinder condition variations. Thus, transient control of engines operating in alternative combustion modes are very challenging compared with control of engines with conventional combustion mode only. This paper presents some advanced air-path control and estimation techniques/practice for multiple and alternative combustion mode engine transient operation. Based on the mean-value engine dynamic models, robust controllers can be designed to track the desired air-path performance variables to ensure desirable combustion during transient operation.

A technique was developed for measuring the Laminar Burning Velocity (LBV) of multi-component fuel blends for use in high-performance spark-ignition engines. This technique involves the use of a centrally-ignited spherical combustion chamber, and a complementary analysis code. The technique was validated by examining several single-component fuels, and the computational procedure was extended to handle multi-component fuels without requiring detailed knowledge of their chemical composition. Experiments performed on an instrumented high-speed engine showed good agreement between the observed heat-release rates of the fuels and their predicted ranking based on the measured LBV parameters.

The effects of downspeeding and supercharging a passenger car diesel engine were studied through laboratory investigation and vehicle simulation. Changes in the engine operating range, transmission gearing, and shift schedule resulted in improved fuel consumption relative to the baseline turbocharged vehicle while maintaining performance and drivability metrics. A shift schedule optimization technique resulted in fuel economy gains of up to 12% along with a corresponding reduction in transmission shift frequency of up to 55% relative to the baseline turbocharged configuration. First gear acceleration, top gear passing, and 0-60 mph acceleration of the baseline turbocharged vehicle were retained for the downsped supercharged configuration.

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) catalysts are used to reduce NOx emissions from internal combustion engines in a variety of applications. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) performed an Internal Research & Development project to study SCR catalyst thermal deactivation. The study included a V/W/TiO₂ formulation, a Cu-zeolite formulation and a Fe-zeolite formulation. This work describes NH₃ storage capacity measurement data as a function of aging time and temperature. Addressing one objective of the work, these data can be used in model-based control algorithms to calculate the current NH₃ storage capacity of an SCR catalyst operating in the field, based on time and temperature history. The model-based control then uses the calculated value for effective DEF control and prevention of excessive NH₃ slip. Addressing a second objective of the work, accelerated thermal aging of SCR catalysts may be achieved by elevating temperatures above normal operating temperatures.